Coltrane Home Declared National Treasure

A big follow-up to a post from 2016, in which we encouraged attendance at that year's Coltrane Day Music Festival: the Coltrane Home, located at 247 Candlewood Path in Dix Hills has been named a "National Treasure" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Basically, what this means is that the Friends of Coltrane group is that much closer to reaching its goals of having the home renovated and opened to the public as a space for music education and cultural enrichment. Full story here.

J Readi - Stakes Is High Freestyle

It's Rakim's nephew rapping over what some might argue is the best De La Soul beat of all time. What more can you ask for? Before you snidely reply, "Rakim rapping over that beat himself," click play and peep game at 1:20 in particular.

John Coltrane Jazz Festival - July 23

It looks like there's only one hip-hop act on the bill (peace to The Constituents) for this all-day festival taking place at Huntington's Heckscher Park, but regardless, this is an event that's not to be missed.

Festival hours: 11:30 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.

Admission is free, though a $10 donation is suggested to help restore the Coltrane home in Dix Hills (where he wrote A Love Supreme in case you didn't know).

Tentative event schedule here.

Workshop registration here.

Roy Haynes headlines.

God Genes: JReadi - The Welcome Mat / The Pretape

Welcome to the 2nd annual #RakimWeek, a week-long celebration of the music of God MC Rakim. This year, we're starting the week off a little bit differently, by tuning our ears not to Ra but to his literal next generation, beginning with nephew JReadi.

Pictured here with uncle Rakim, JReadi attended North Hills High School in Dix Hills, just north of Wyandanch. According to his ReverbNation page, he started getting busy in 2004, was mentored by Spiv Dolla, and made early appearances on the 2008 Fly Guy Family mixtape, Rise of the Empire.

Since then, he's released two mixtapes, 2010's The Welcome Mat (which featured Rakim on its last track, "Talking to God") and 2015's The Pretape (a precursor to the upcoming album, Radio Readi, which has been in the works for a while). Stream both tapes below, along with videos for "Don't Sweat the Technique" and "Insufficient Funds," and visit his PR site for more.

#RakimWeek continues until Saturday, with more Ra-related info, music, etc. each day of the week.